Sustainable Timber Harvest on Darling Hill Parcel

A Changing Landscape for the Health of our Forests

Once you’ve crested the hill and entered the woods, you’ll also notice that the forest is thinned. This makes space for healthy trees to thrive and new space for young trees to sprout. You’ll see disturbed ground surface in the harvest's landing area, remaining compromised wood, and downed woody debris. A successful harvest operation will create woody debris and purposely leave some of the compromised wood to emulate the natural state of an unmanaged forest, providing habitat for wildlife and compost to feed the foliage. This debris also functions as an extra protective layer for the ground surface while the machines are in operation to avoid disturbing the soils. At first, these changes will be very noticeable. But just as it happened 20 years ago, when this property was last harvested, soon the grass will grow in and the healthier forest will integrate the changes.

The Northeast Kingdom upholds a lasting tradition of working landscapes and shared land use, from hunting grounds to maple sugaring stands, pasture lands to timber harvests, even recreational trails for all. KT seeks to embrace this long-standing legacy of a working landscapes, while embodying the fact that recreation and active resource management can coexist. We believe that a holistic land stewardship approach strives for forest health, and is a powerful alternative to land development and permanent land-use change. We support conservation that involves thoughtful resource production to improve long-term forest health and support the local economy. KT’s Executive Director Abby Long is proud to serve on Vermont’s Forest Future Advisory Panel advocating for recreation as part of Vermont’s forest economy.

In 2020, with your support and in partnership with the Vermont Land Trust and Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, KT conserved the Darling Ridge Parcel with pre-existing Current Use enrollment and a forest management plan in place. A timber harvest operation was planned to allow more growing space for healthy trees, diversify wildlife habitat, create a resilient forest to weather the impacts of global climate change, and allow the working forest to help carry some of the ownership cost through selling quality timber products. 

Beginning in the summer of 2022, KT Trail Director CJ Scott and then Mapping and Signage Specialist Matt Brabender began working together with Forester Ryan Kilborn of Meadowsend Consulting to determine property boundaries, affected trails, and lay out patterns utilizing old logging roads minimizing active trail crossings. The crew flagged each trail entry so that the locations of the crossings would be visible to the operators in the winter time and could be found in the spring when time to clean up. 

Through a public bid process, KT sought to work with an NEK operator and a mechanized crew to care for aesthetics, lessen the overall impact, and for efficiency to minimize the length of time and multiple machine entries for the harvest. Emerson & Sons logging was selected for the project. According to Kilborn “References played a huge part in selecting the Emersons to do the job, and I think the quality of work they showed is a great example as to why they were selected.”

The operation began as soon as the ground froze, the long-term forecast held below freezing temperatures (which was January 31st this year!) Harvesting on frozen ground, and ideally with snow cover, minimizes impact to the ground surface and wood. Harvesting during the winter season also helped KT to minimize the impact of trail closures. The harvest area was approximately a quarter of the overall parcel. Although there were only 5 trail crossings in total,  KT ultimately decided to close all trails in the area for the 2 week duration of the harvest to allow for safe and efficient operations. Throughout the process, KT was thrilled with the communication and cooperation between all partners including trail users and the local community. Safety was the number one priority. We appreciated the respect afforded to the trail closures as well as the willingness of Emerson’s crew to modify their plans accommodating our Torchlit Trail experiences and safely allowing the space for a local High School Nordic race. KT ED Abby Long shares, “Working with Ryan, Zach and his dad was a gift. They not only provided an incredible service to our forest and community, they also offered educational opportunities for all to take part in and learn. We are truly grateful for their hard work and dedication to the care of our beautiful landscape that all enjoy.” 

With guidance from Kilborn, Emerson’s crew was meticulous in their work, performing selective thinning in the hardwood stands and smaller, continuous tracts of harvesting in softwood stands while removing infected, split or compromised trees for public safety, and to curb the spread of invasive species. The timing of this harvest was fortunate, occurring prior to Emeral Ash Borer beetles affecting the area. According to Kilborn, the next entry (harvest) to this property will likely occur in the next 15-20 years. Throughout the operation, the utmost care was taken to prioritize the health of the forest while considering the recreationalist’s experience of the trails and the landscape. According to Zach Emerson, “working on Kingdom Trails property was a delight. It’s not everyday you have the view of Burke Mountain as your backdrop. The KT project was a huge success, even with Mother Nature throwing in her opinion. All harvesting goals and objectives were met and completed in a timely manner. I’m most excited for the reaction of local folks and the mountain biking community to see the positive change and how a well managed forest can benefit us all when we work together as landowners, professional logging contractors and foresters. We look forward to working with Kingdom Trails in the future. 

Woods harvested were white pine, ash, sugar maple and hemlock for saw logs. The hemlock will be used by KT for bridge building and trail features. The low grade wood harvested will be utilized for firewood at local sugaring operations, hard pulp, softwood pulp, and biomass. A portion of the timber sale proceeds will be put towards repairing the erosion of Bill Magill while the remaining will go toward KT’s Stewardship Fund, which is devoted to caring for our shared lands.

In September of 2022, KT hosted an educational walk guided by Kilborn to learn about the impending timber harvest. We now look forward to hosting a post harvest educational walk and invite all to join us on May 24, 2023 at 4-5:30 leaving from the Wildflower Inn, directly after the KT Community Chat at 3pm.

We’d like to thank Ryan Kilborn and Zach Emerson for a great timber harvest experience, and express our utmost gratitude for the support of our community!